Food Day Friday: Daughter's birthday cake

Husband made Daughter a Perry the Platypus (from Phineas and Freb) birthday cake. He did a FANTASTIC job and she loved it.

This is the process:

Husband is much more creative than he gives himself credit for. I'm so proud of his creation.

Daughter is the big T-H-R-E-E

This is a picture from this morning's park fun.

Daughter is such an amazing, smart, funny, silly, kind, gently spirit.

(not to mention crazy, bossy, and overall high spirited)

I love this kid and wouldn't change one thing about her.

what's going on in the garden?

I've got to admit, I'm feeling a little garden burnout. I'm not as excited about the garden as I was in May. Here's the rundown:

tomatoes: we're still picking enough to can at least a pint a week

okra: heavy winds knocked down half of our okra plants so we've got 3 left and we pick maybe a half dozen a week

muskmelons: dead. all of them and it's all my fault. I completely flaked out on watering the garden for 4 days. Sure, I had plenty stored water, I just didn't get outside and water. As a result all the musk melons dried up and died. I was mad at myself about it for about a day, but now I'm ok about it.

broccoli: sprouting, starting to grow. Daughter is going to be so excited when she realizes it's in the garden. She loves broccoli [and dipping it in ranch dressing].

baby bok choy: starting to sprout up. excited to try this in stir fry.

and that ladies and gentlemen is all. There's still some garlic in the ground with green stems, but I really have no clue what's going on underground on that one.

Daughter's First Football Game

Last Friday night may have been one of the greatest night's of Daughter's life. She sure acted like it was.

My Alma Mater was playing a next door city rival. Now, when I was in high school over 10 years ago, we only played this school my freshman year (they were also a class below us) and the score was something like 63-7. A lot has changed since then. but anyway, back to the story.

Husband decided that he's taking Daughter to the Alabama/Georgia State game a few Thursday night's from now. As a practice run, we decided we'd take her to a high school football game. HYT @ PG seemed like a great game to go to. HYT has a quarterback that is supposedly a big deal and Husband wanted to see him play. Perfect. We dropped Son off with my mother and we were on our way.

Sure HYT/PG is a big game but we didn't anticipate how incredibly crowded it would be. We waited in line for about 10 minutes just to buy our ticket. And the HYT crowd showed up! The visitor stands were more packed than the home stands. Luckily, I found some great seats with some old friends/old Sunday School teachers of mine and we were in business.

The only thing separating us from the cheerleaders was a hill of grass. Daughter immediately wanted to move there. So Daughter and Husband moved so she could dance and cheer with more room. She wanted the cheerleaders "spark-ly shakers" and "horn" (I had to later tell Husband that the horns are actually called megaphones).

She danced when the band played.

She cheered when the cheerleaders cheered.

She yelled and clapped when the crowd did.

She kept her eye on the mascot (a gopher) but didn't want to get too close.

She did just about everything except watch the football game.

At the end of the first quarter the HYT cheerleaders threw shirts and mini footballs into the crowd. Daughter got a football and had to show me immediately. "CHEERLEADER GAVE ME DIS FOOTBALL!" She was ecstatic.

Right before Husband took her to the concession stand for fries and m&ms. She came back announcing "Daddy got my two fav-or-ites" She sat down and ate while we watches the bands march.

During the 3rd quarter I suggested Husband take her to the gopher for a photo-op. They got about 10 feet away and Daughter got cold feet. Mommy swooped in and I carried her up to the gopher and said "Hi, Gopher. Can I have a high five?" {high five} and Daughter was sold. She needed a high five (multiple ones) and her picture taken. Although she wouldn't let me put her down.

The game got completely out of control during the 3rd quarter and we left early to see what fun Son was having. We stayed and played for awhile and all Daughter could talk about was how she got a football from a cheerleader, high fived the gopher and ate fries!

On the way home we stopped by Krispy Kreme and everyone got their favorite. I think Son at more of his cake donut than Daughter at of her chocolate glazed.

Both kids had so much fun ... which means I did too.

Daughter enjoying her fries.

That was about the fifth high five she gave the gopher.

Notice the little toe head in the bottom of the shot. He makes a cameo in the next pic too.

She was too excited to look at the camera. She only wanted to look at the gopher.

notice toe head's creepy hand placement.

Daughter was telling me "Gopher gave me high five."

cheering.

watching.

my kids are bears fans, I guess

Husband has been a Chicago Bears fan since he was a kid.

No, I don't know why.

I don't really like pro sports. At all. I used to love MLB, but not really so much anymore. I don't like how quickly the makeup of a team can change. Your favorite player can be traded. A player you hate from another team signs a contract. And I don't have an pro sports teams in my city so I really have no "brand loyalty" for a team. (There is a AA baseball team I love to watch)

A couple of weeks ago, Old Navy had a sale where if you bought a (slightly overpriced) NFL shirt, you got jeans half off. I need jeans, in a bad way. And I like Old Navy's Diva cut. Plus half off. Plus I had a $10 off reward card. good deal.

This is what we came away with in the area of NFL shirts:

They suddenly BECAME football players when we put the shirts on them. running around, chasing each other, tackling. (oh and giggling -- but that's probably not pro football player like)

recent park trip

Gone are the days when the only thing Son can do at the park is swing. Sure, he still loves to swing, but he's broadened his horizons.

swing

slide (the BIG one)

see saw

the creek

This little boy wants to do it all. And luckily, Daughter wants to do it all with him.

I love going to the park with the kids. Especially now that it's not 120 degrees outside.

He always wants to swing first.

She always wants to swing, do something else, swing again, try something new, swing again. etc.

I was going to use this picture to update the sidebar on the blog until I realized that Son's hands have vanished in a running frenzy. Now it just looks creepy to me.

He loves to see saw. But it makes me nervous that he'll forget to hold on so that's about as high as he gets off the ground for now.

See the slide behind him? It's his favorite.

This is the closest I got to Daughter actually looking at me for a picture. She sat with me on a bench swing to talk about what she wanted to lunch.

I love to watch these kids have fun. It's fun for me.

Wordless Wednesday: Nutella ice cream stirrer

garden guru visit -- finally

This is one of the entries that fell through the cracks a couple of weeks ago when I was catching up. We went to visit the garden of our garden gurus and have lunch and just enjoy the company.

And what a fabulous time we had! everyone. It was a great day of fun.

Daughter loved petting Muffin.

Son loved carrying around a stuffed animal dog.

While Daughter ran around the yard with the real dogs.

They were such well behaved buddies. She had a blast.

This was AFTER brownie dessert and right before we headed outside to pick apples.

She's ready.

Our garden guru showing Daughter the right way to pick apples to promote new growth.

Picking

I wish I could remember the variety of the apples, but I do remember she said they are a variety that Thomas Jefferson grew. We ended up picking dozens and I spent the next day making the most fabulous applesauce I've ever had.

We fed the pony and donkey our watermelon rinds from lunch and Daughter loved it. She thought it was so great watching them eat. Garden guru made the mistake of telling Daughter that they also love apples.

She spent the next 10 minutes picking one apple, throwing it to the donkey. Picking another apple, throwing it to the pony. It was pretty sweet and she was so excited that she got to do it.

Son carried around an apple of his own. He ended up eating all of it by the time we went back in.

George

Ringo

Daughter eating a Juliet tomato.

(this is where our Juliets came from)

She loved helping water. She was so excited to be asked.

Son carrying his apple and a rotten Stupice tomato.

Daughter watered the basil.

They have more than 4 times as much basil as we do. That's A LOT of picking!!

Husband too some time with the animals.

We had such a fabulous time and came home with apples for apple sauce, tomatoes to can (enough for 5 pints), peppers and a little okra.

It was such a fun relaxed day. And I loved walking around their garden. I definitely learned a lot. And the kids were asleep before we pulled out of their driveway!

It's game day!